By Tom Horvath, PhD
A recent study found a helpful effect from having a “spiritual component” to one’s life. That component significantly prevented addictive problems and aided in the change process if problems already existed. The strength of the effect was not major but given the challenges of addressing an addictive problem it is helpful to know about any helpful effect.
Spirituality was defined as an aspect of life
“through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence, and experience relationship to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred.” Although spirituality encompasses religion as part of established faith institutions, it also broadly includes other ways people find meaning, purpose, and connection to something greater than themselves.
From my perspective many individuals have spirituality according to this definition. Many of us would probably benefit from devoting more time to this component of life. However, one of the major questions about defining this component is whether meaning, purpose, and connection to others are sufficient, or whether transcendence (connection to something greater than themselves) is also necessary.
This meta-analysis covered 55 studies, screened from over 20,000 candidate studies. The 55 studies were based on 540,712 participants. None were published before 2000, and all were rigorously conducted.
This study does not address the question about the need for transcendence. Even without transcendence, in the process of resolving addictive problems it is generally very helpful to enhance meaning, purpose, and connection to others. One way to describe success is that the meaningful, purposeful, connected life one is now leading is so good that returning to addictive problems (which would disrupt the new life) becomes almost unthinkable.
The implication of these findings is that if we can enhance someone’s sense of meaning, purpose, and transcendence, we may prevent or resolve more addictive problems. The challenge, as it has always been, is how to help someone think at this high level when they are trying just to get by hour to hour and day to day. One approach for all of us is to remember the times in our lives when these aspects were strong, and how we felt at that time. Perhaps we would feel motivated enough to return to those activities and feelings more often.
Spirituality and Harmful or Hazardous Alcohol and Other Drug Use: A Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies. (2026). Koh, Frederick, Balboni, O’Reilly, et. al,
Liked this article on spirituality and addictive problems? You might also be interested in: On Being a SEN Master, part 1.